Our Trip to Belize

At long length of last, I'm back. I'll confess that I've been putting off posting, simply because I know that I want to write a great big, wordy, story filled, run-on sentence filled ramble on our recent trip to Belize! (How's that for getting off to a good start?!?) Plus choosing only a few from our multitude of pictures to show you what it was like . . . sigh, the task is enough that it kept me thinking, 'I don't have time for that today, maybe tomorrow!'

But I finally decided that I'm just going to sit down and work on it, and if I get interrupted, I may need a 'Part 2' later. So be it!

By the way, since a few people have wondered if everything is okay, and if we're all doing well, the answer is yes. I've just been kind of lazy about posting!

So let's go to Belize! By way of introduction . . . We've been hoping/planning to go down there to visit our friends Chad & Amalia ever since they went down last summer (they are filling in for a missionary family that is on furlough for a year). For a while it didn't look like it was going to work, but we finally just bit the bullet and bought tickets. At the last minute, David's boss and his wife (Lavern & Shawn) decided to go along with us and surprise Chads. We had lots of fun travelling with them, and our week with Chads was like one LONG party. We had such a good time there! We flew on February 17th, and came home on the 25th. In the air! The children sure enjoyed the complimentary beverages & snacks!

This is Chad & Mali & their family.

For those of you who don't know, they are living just outside the village of San Antonio, which is in the Orange Walk district, in northern Belize.

Their house.

Our travelling companions, Lavern & Shawn. (I know they look a little grim in this shot, but honestly, they are lots of fun to be with!!)

We had fun planting flowers in February! We thoroughly enjoyed soaking up the sunshine and going barefooted all day long! It would get up to around 85 degrees in the afternoon, which felt so good to us northerners!
A shopping excursion for the women! We went to Orange Walk. Browsing through the produce at the market. I love shopping like that!
The Bakery, it was tough deciding what to get for a snack, everything looked SOOO good!

Benji was so excited when I brought him a cheese filled alligator made from sweet bread dough! It had frosting for the eyes and tongue, so he elected to eat the head, and shared the rest with the other children!

Katri didn't mind sampling a local delicacy. Every time we ate chicken, where ever we went, the feet were right there in the dish. (They seem to eat a lot of chicken down there too!) The rest of us passed on them. But I figured Katri would enjoy it since she likes chewing on bones anyway . . . she sure did enjoy it!

One day we packed a picnic lunch and loaded up in the van, taking the day to go sight seeing. Our destination was 'Thousand Foot Falls'. Chad thought that after driving a few hours on the paved road we would have 'only' 12 miles of dirt road to traverse, and while that did 'have some rough spots' it would get better at the end. Well, after four miles of THIS . . .

. . . we decided to stop, get out of the van to walk around a bit, and have a convention on whether or not to continue. By this time, some of our stomachs weren't feeling the best, and Katri was coming down with what I call "Too Much Fun Syndrome". It seems like whenever my children are in a constant crowd, they get sick after a few days. I think it's just stress. But there is nothing 'just' about it when you're in a crowded van and your little girl is having bouts of diarrhea and crying non-stop. Especially if neither of you have a change of clothes along. And as I said already, the van was crowded.

To make a long story short, a little fresh air and a break from the bumps did most of us (not Katri) a lot of good, and we decided to press on. Sure enough, the road soon got better, not good, but better, and we were thankful. Eventually we reached the park where the falls were located. The gatekeeper told us it was 30 minutes more to the falls . . . we hoped it was less, but it turned out to be quite a bit more.

We did eventually get there though, and it was quite a sight!

Three years ago, the British Army measured the falls, and they're actually 1660 feet long. But it has been called 'Thousand Foot Falls' long enough that I don't think the name is likely to change soon. It does have another name as well, which I can't remember at the moment.

A sign on the pavillion wall where we had lunch. It was very steep there!

We got the sandwiches made and everything set out . . . where were the guys? Off exploring somewhere. We ladies were STARVED so we fixed our plates and sat down. No sooner did we take our first bites, then here came the men, wanting to know why we didn't wait for them!! Hey, we weren't waiting any longer!

Mali made lots of tortillas while we were there! I helped, but I can't even come close to patting them out as fast as Mali! (She is a Guatemalan, raised in Belize, by the way.)

Mealtime = big discussions. We had many of them, some serious, some hilarious, some got pretty loud. Maybe we even had an ordinary one?? I'm not sure. They were all good though.

This is the guy that went around selling fresh corn tortillas. I don't know what kind of motor scooter he was driving, but it was neat!

Mali & Esther's washroom. It was fun using a wringer, but it did give me more respect for people who use them, and for my automatic at home!

Noel (2) and Katri (1 1/2) decided to climb the cistern (10 ft tall) while nobody was watching them. We still haven't figured out how they did it. The rickety 8 foot ladder was almost not long enough. Noel says he helped Katri, and I really don't know how else she could have managed it with a dress hindering her . . . I'm just glad that by the time we found them they were safely up there! They were grinning SO BIG! They knew they had done something a little too big for them, and they were sure proud of themselves!

One of the delicious meals Mali & Esther made for us, this one is called Salbutes. A seasoned corn tortilla, topped with chicken, cabbage & tomato. Yum!

Isaac - 5 months old. He was born after Chad's came down, so we were looking forward to meeting this little tyke!

On our way back to the airport in Cancun, Mexico, we stopped at the Golden Arches for lunch. We saw this iguana sitting on this ledge right by the drive-thru! That got all the children (and I suppose some of the adults) pretty excited!

Well, there it is. It did take a bit of time to get those pictures all uploaded. So, um, for all of my 'ghost readers' out there, you're quite welcome to leave a comment . . . I do like hearing from you too . . .